Employees

2021 was also a challenging year for employees. From switching between home and office working to constantly changing safety regulations – everyone supported the measures and played a huge part in keeping the disruption caused by COVID-19-related downtime to a minimum.

Global pandemic – global crisis management

As part of the Group-wide crisis management, Lenzing reacted quickly, efficiently and innovatively to protect employees and their families and avoid production downtime. It set up local COVID-19 crisis teams at every production site and all sites under construction to supplement global crisis management efforts. Meetings were held at least once a week in the reporting year under review to evaluate proposed measures throughout the Group and decide whether to implement them.

A Lenzing corporate action plan was created to align corporate pandemic safety measures with national regulations and policies. The company’s measures were generally stricter and implemented earlier than national regulations. Moreover, they were never significantly relaxed within the company even though individual countries eased their lockdowns at times. This action plan includes a number of measures that were implemented on a site-specific basis.

• Social distancing and anti-transmission measures (working from home, maintaining a distance of at least 2 m, face masks, travel bans or restrictions)
• Technical measures (temperature control checks at entrances, surface disinfection)
• Information on personal hygiene practices to avoid infections
• Psychological support (hotline, assistance for employees and families in need)

“Lock-in” schemes were also developed for the Lenzing Group’s production sites to keep operations running at all times.

All employees at the Austrian sites were offered testing (antigen, PCR) to quickly confirm or rule out suspected infections. Online townhall meetings were held regularly – every two weeks in the first few months – so that employees could hear about the current situation from the Managing Board and have the opportunity to ask questions or express concerns. Local crisis teams set up additional online meetings to explain new measures and answer employees’ questions.

One of the first actions that Lenzing took was to instruct employees to work from home wherever possible. It quickly built the necessary infrastructure so that remote workers could have the best possible technical working conditions. For more information on remote working conditions and opportunities, please refer to “Digitalization & cyber security” chapter.

The Austrian sites signed up for the government’s furlough program, which allows companies to quickly respond to the changes in business conditions without layoffs. Lenzing was also forced to temporarily slow production and even close plants at some sites.

International workforce

The Lenzing Group’s workforce is becoming increasingly inter­national. Despite the company’s firm roots in Europe, an international corporate culture has evolved in the Lenzing Group based on strong collaboration between its sites in Asia, Europe, and America. The management team actively supports the internationalization of the workforce at all levels. At the same time, Lenzing remains an agile, hands-on company committed to service excellence while still preserving a familial atmosphere.

Further milestones in terms of internationalization include the successful integration of the new plants in Thailand and Brazil, while taking into account the respective national cultures of staff members. The installation of the pulp plant in Brazil will allow Lenzing to extend its asset base to South America.

Diversity

Respect, diversity, and inclusion are fundamental pillars of the sCore TEN corporate strategy and integral, indispensable elements of the Lenzing culture. A diversity program was adopted on February 19, 2018. These rules are taken into consideration in staffing positions on the Supervisory and Managing Boards and are also principles applied more broadly in the overall recruitment process. It is in the interest of the group to further grow diversity with respect to experience, cultural background and gender. The percentage of Austrian personnel decreased from around 47 percent in 2020 to some 45 percent in 2021 as Lenzing continued to expand internationally. The number of female managers increased by 21 percent in 2021 versus the year before and the total number of female employees increased by almost 14 percent, twice the rate of growth of male employees.

In the Lenzing Group’s Policy on Human Rights and Labor Standards, Lenzing undertakes to respect and support fundamental labor rights principles such as protection from discrimination, harassment, and inhumane treatment. This encompasses protection against employment decisions based on personal characteristics or beliefs that are not related to the ability to do one’s job, including gender, age, race, color, national origin, ethnicity, social background, sexual orientation, family responsibility (including pregnancy), disabilities, political opinion, sensitive medical conditions, marital status, and any other discrimination in working conditions.

Lenzing has initiated a review to better understand the barriers to enabling greater diversity in its workforce, particularly in relation to gender diversity. In November 2021 Lenzing conducted three focus groups across the company to better understand the challenges in achieving more balanced gender representation. The objective was to identify the lived experience of men and women in Lenzing, and determine whether barriers exist in enabling greater gender diversity. In total 19 women and 9 men across the global Lenzing organization were invited to participate. Lenzing worked with Shape Talent, a renowned UK based agency. An evidence-based model was used which describes the three categories of barriers that undermine women’s equal representation in the workplace, particularly at senior levels. The results are currently analysed and will be actioned in 2022.

In a survey by the Financial Times and Statista, the Lenzing Group was awarded the “Leader in Diversity 2022” accreditation logo in the area of diversity. Over 100,000 workers across Europe voted.

In a Europe-wide survey last year, over 100,000 employees were asked to rate their employers and other companies in the areas of age distribution, gender distribution, ethnic distribution, inclusion, LGBTQ+ and diversity in general. Evaluations and recommendations from HR experts were also included in the analysis, which was carried out by the Financial Times and the independent market research company Statista. Lenzing clearly stood out in the ranking in the area of Manufacture and Processing of Materials, Metals and Paper and was therefore awarded the accreditation logo.

Respect, diversity and inclusion are fundamental pillars of the Lenzing corporate strategy sCore TEN and are thus an important part of Lenzing’s success. The diversity of employees is what makes Lenzing stand out: the company not only benefits from their know-how and expertise, but also grows every day through teamwork, new perspectives and approaches, as well as the respect its employees show to one another every day.

Fair pay committment

Lenzing AG, with its strong focus on sustainable growth, is committed to recognizing equality and diversity in the implementation of compensation practices worldwide. The company has set itself the goal of designing salary structures and levels in such a way that they are both internally fair and externally competitive.

Internal equity means paying equal salaries or wages for work of equal value (job evaluation system and classification metho­dology) and is important to achieve job satisfaction and meet regulatory requirements. External competitiveness is determined by tracking market wages through published surveys and other local data sources.

In addition, in the reporting year preparations have been made to anchor the performance of an annual gender pay equity analysis in the Lenzing Group Reward Guideline to ensure equal pay and close any gaps. In this context, Lenzing AG will continue to conduct an annual benchmarking and data analysis and keep the Management Board informed of its progress.

Employees in numbers

Compared to previous years, the ongoing progress and development of Lenzing’s two future projects in Brazil and Thailand have greatly contributed to increasing employee headcount in 2021. The main reasons for employees leaving in 2021 are a higher number of retirements and mutual contract terminations. This is reflected in all figures in the following tables.

Employees 2021 – General information required

Employees 2021 – Individuals within the organization’s governance body

Employees 2021 – Individuals outside the organization’s governance body

Employees 2021 – Individuals within managing role

Employees 2021 – Newly hired employees

Employees 2021 – Employee turnover

Employees 2021 – Employees with disabilities

Works council

The Lenzing Group’s management is committed to a trans­parent information policy towards the employees’ official representatives. There are local works councils at the facilities in Lenzing and Heiligen­kreuz. In accordance with the Austrian Labor Constitution Act, representatives of the Lenzing AG works council at the Lenzing site have seats and voting rights on the Supervisory Board. The Lenzing AG works council represents the interests of em­ployees at the sites in Lenzing and Heiligenkreuz (Austria). In addition to these sites, trade union representatives of different fractions and interest groups are active at the sites in Paskov, Purwakarta, Nanjing, Grimsby, and Mobile.

As the two plants in Brazil and Thailand are not yet operational, no relevant information can be provided at this stage.

This would mean that 100 percent of the active workforce at Lenzing production sites would be represented by local trade unions or works councils, with membership being voluntary.

Implementation of Global Performance and Talent Management

Lenzing rolled out two fundamental people development processes in the reporting year: Performance and Talent Management. The company is stepping up its efforts to support the development of individual employees and the company as a whole by defining profound processes, clear roles, and a digital system.

Lenzing strongly believes that everyone has potential and talent. Like a seed, human beings need the right conditions and support to grow and blossom. Talent Management aims to accelerate talent development and enable promising individuals to grow with the business. The Talent Management process is designed to understand and support the needs of the Lenzing Group and to develop the right talent mix to implement the sCore TEN strategy. Furthermore, Talent Management helps to develop a strong internal talent pipeline of successors to key positions in the future.

The global Performance Management process aims to drive growth and build a sustainable business excellence by creating a culture of high engagement and high performance. Performance Management focuses on creating an environment where people can perform to the best of their abilities to produce the highest-quality work most efficiently and effectively. It is simply the way the company makes its decisions and build sustainable business performance.

Both processes were rolled out to the first three levels of the Lenzing Group and some selected departments in 2021. As a result that Lenzing trained more than 1250 employees in 2021. The rest of the organization will be trained in 2022. Thereafter, all white collar employees will use this up to date digital process for Performance and Talent Management.

Lenzing Leadership programs

31 highly motivated employees were selected in autumn 2019 to join “Springboard III”, Lenzing’s global junior leadership program, for training and preparation for future leadership positions within the Lenzing Group. Due to the unprecedented situation brought about by the global pandemic, the program was reorganized in 2020 as a virtual learning program that enabled participants to learn and develop their skills via different program modules: self-learning, virtual exchange and individual and group coaching.

In 2021, the participants completed Learning Unit 3 out of 5, which covered “Shape”, an important aspect of Lenzing’s leadership model. They began Learning Unit 4, covering the topic “Deliver” in the third quarter of 2021. This Learning Unit is set up in the form of individualized learning journeys, which are closely linked to business projects that the Springboarders are working on, so that they can develop the necessary skills to deliver outstanding results via teamwork in a practical setting.

In 2022, the Springboard program will be end with Learning Unit 5 “Develop” and a formal graduation ceremony to celebrate the Springboarder’s development.

The first global group of “Leaders of Tomorrow”, a tailor-made development program for skilled workers early in their careers, was completed in the beginning of 2021. It was launched in 2018 with an Austrian pilot group and rolled out globally in autumn 2019. The program includes job rotations, seminars and virtual exchanges. Ten employees from Austria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Indonesia, and China successfully graduated in this unique development program and are now prepared for future leadership roles and international collaboration.

Competency Framework

The Lenzing Competency Framework concept was developed in 2020. Each framework consists of leadership and functional competencies. The leadership competencies align with the sCore TEN leadership model and are globally consistent for all Lenzing employees. The functional competencies describe the required level of competency for the specific business area. By assessing employees according to the expected competencies of their job role, Lenzing is able to systematically identify its employees’ strengths and development needs. It can then leverage these insights to provide individual learning opportunities and prioritize different training initiatives. In 2021, almost 200 colleagues from the Commercial area assessed their competencies. The Commercial Academy was developed based on the insights from the competency assessments. With this successful launch other target groups within Global Engineering and Human Resources will start the process in 2022. In total, more than 400 employees will participate in the competency assessment process. Lenzing will roll out the competency framework to all white collar employees in the coming years to be able to analyze the development needs of individuals and teams.

Learning & Development

Lenzing employees take responsibility for their own personal and professional development. To enable their continuous, individual development, Lenzing has developed a global Learning & Development (L&D) catalog. The catalog is part of the Lenzing internal learning management system Learn@Lenzing and allows employees to individually browse for development opportunities. The catalog includes formal training programs with a particular focus on social learning and experience learning opportunities. This 70:20:10 blended learning approach has proven its value in adult development. It was rolled out in 2021 and will be promoted again as part of Lenzing’s performance management process. The catalog is available to all Lenzing sites in English. In adition, a global Learning & Development guideline will be launched at the beginning of 2022 to ensure processes and the use of tools and systems are standardized for the professional development of Lenzing’s employees.

As the global pandemic continued in 2021, it was difficult to conduct face-to-face trainings. Lenzing therefore continued to expand its digital training offering. A representative cross-section of the remote training sessions includes:

• Onboarding eLearning roll-out started in Q4 2021
• The Commercial Academy for a target group of 315 employees with virtual training on internal topics of Lenzing such as fiber and product know-how, sustainability and branding as well as commercial focused learning opportunities such as value selling, virtual presence and customer care skills
• In total, more than 30 sessions involving over 450 participants took place in 2021
• New eLearning courses on social skills were piloted in Austria. In 2022 Lenzing plans to roll out even more eLearning courses globally
• Remote “Train the Trainer” courses for technical experts to train new employees in Brazil within the construction project

Despite the constraints of the pandemic, Lenzing still managed to conduct strategically important face-to-face training in 2021. This was accompanied by strict preventive measures such as regular testing, social distancing, face masks etc.

• Technical training for 29 employees from the plant in Thailand, at the Heiligenkreuz, and Lenzing sites
• The ERP Academy to boost SAP and process knowledge was launched in 2021 and will continue in the coming years, involving a target group of 700 employees at the Lenzing site and other global participants
• Total expenditure on lifelong learning and personnel development decreased from EUR 6.15 mn in 2019 to EUR 4.03 mn in 2020, and levelled at EUR 6.19 mn end of 2021. This includes group-wide expenses by Bildungszentrum Lenzing (BZL). Therefore, the group-wide consolidated expenses for trainings in 2021 are EUR 2.46 mn. (2020: EUR 1.38 mn, 2019: EUR 2.83 mn).